


Conversations with unhappy people

by EvaBelmort



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers through MAG 124
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-10-18 07:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17576789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvaBelmort/pseuds/EvaBelmort
Summary: Jon Sims talks to people. No one is happy. He may get punched in the face at some point.A series of short pieces, slowly but surely drifting away from canon.





	1. Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim is angry with Jon, but he's angry with a lot of people, and some other things that aren't people... (A missing scene set during the trip to Great Yarmouth.)

Basira was a steady, careful driver. She put the radio on something soft and folksy, and for the entire trip nobody said a word. Tim stared out the window and didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and Jon did the same, and Daisy alternated between staring out the window and staring at Basira.

When they got to the B&B that Rosie had booked them into, they found that Daisy and Basira had a double room, while Jon just had a single queen bed. After a moment, Jon took the key, then looked at Tim uncertainly.

Tim shrugged. “Whatever, I don’t care. If sharing a bed bothers you, _you_ can sleep on the floor.” He paused, then glanced in the direction Daisy and Basira had gone. “At least we don’t have to share a room with the Detective, I’d be too scared she’d murder me in my sleep.”

Jon gave a startled laugh, and then grimaced. “I’m, ah, pretty sure if she was going to kill somebody, she’d rather they were awake.”

Tim hunched in on himself a little, and they both glanced down the hallway again, nervously, but the other two were no longer visible. After a tense moment, they grabbed their bags and headed up to the room. It was quite nice, a bit floral, maybe, but clean and tidy.

Jon hesitated in the doorway, and Tim scowled at him. “What is it _now_?”

“Ah, nothing, it’s… I just- need to record a statement, but- I can go sit in the car or something, it’s- it’s fine.”

Tim frowned. “What, has Elias got you on a quota or something? Pretty sure saving the world means you can take the night off.”

“No, it’s not-” Jon shifted uncomfortably, fidgeting with his bag and nearly managing to upend it on the floor. “I get… sick, now, if I don’t do them regularly. And I’d rather not go into this thing tomorrow at any more of a disadvantage.”

“Right.” Tim scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fantastic. Tell you what, boss, I’m going to take a shower. You do...whatever you have to do to keep your spooky eye god from melting your brain, and I am going to use up all the hot water and once again be thankful that I’m not rooming with the Detective, who probably has to do human sacrifices to appease hers.”

“Not necessarily _human_ sacrifices, and I think she’s on a looser schedule,” Jon muttered.

Tim stared at him, then his gaze dropped down to Jon’s neck, and he swallowed and turned away. He grabbed his bag and stalked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The lock clicked audibly. 

Jon frowned at the closed door, then touched the side of his neck, and his fingers trembled briefly. The scar Daisy had left wasn’t the biggest one he had, but it had been a ragged, messy wound, and it hadn’t healed nicely. Jon knew he hadn’t exactly been model material before he started working for the Archives, but he was starting to resemble something out of a horror movie.

after a moment, he shook himself, fishing out his tape recorder (already on, unsurprisingly, lucky Tim hadn’t noticed or he’d have been even more annoyed) and the short statement he’d brought along. He wasn’t sure how long the hot water would last, so in the interests of keeping the peace, he needed to hurry up.

When he was finished, he knocked on the bathroom door. The shower was still running, but he said, “All done, if you’d like to get out before you turn into a prune. I’m going to get us something to eat.” And then he grabbed his wallet and the room key and ducked out, like the coward he liked to pretend he wasn't.

He managed to find a decent Indian place a little ways down the road, and he recalled from the days when he and Tim were still on speaking terms that he’d liked rogan josh. He sidled back into the room uncertainly, and found Tim sitting on the bed in a t-shirt and pants, his hair still damp and curling a little at the ends.

“Ah, curry okay?”

“Sure.”

Jon nodded, setting the boxes out on the tiny table in the corner of the room. Tim padded over and sat down, and they proceeded to eat in awkward silence. Jon, who had a lot of experience with awkward silences, kept his eyes on his food and tried not to think about circuses or explosives or the myriad ways things could all go horribly wrong the next day.

Tim was clearly less successful, because after about ten minutes, he said sharply, “So what happens if you die here? With the Archive, I mean.”

Jon blinked, finished his mouthful of chicken korma, then said carefully, “From the sounds of it Elias will try to give Martin the job. Um. Assuming, of course, that we manage to stop the Stranger turning the world into a clown-themed hellscape and there is still an Institute to worry about.”

“Right. And too bad if Martin doesn’t want it...” Tim paused. “I wonder if not being able to quit means you can’t turn down a promotion? Is he even qualified?”

“He’s really not, but it’s not like I am either. Who’s going to argue with Elias?”

Tim snorted. Then he blinked, staring at Jon. “What do you mean, you aren’t either?”

“Well, I was a researcher, but I don’t actually have a degree in information science or anything. Elias just… told me he thought I could do it, and I believed him.” Jon sighed, rubbing at his face. “You know, it never even occurred to me that it was weird until Georgie pointed it out?”

“Elias.” Tim scowled at his food.

“Yes, well.” They both fell silent, and Jon scrambled for something else to say. “It’s, uh, it makes sense, I suppose. He was the one who chose Martin. To work in the Archives, I mean. No idea why. I was really annoyed about it, actually. I mean, he’s a lot better now, but he was so _awful_ at research.”

“Wait, so… Elias asked him? Not you?” Tim was frowning thoughtfully.

“Yes. I asked you and Sasha, because you were both competent and not annoying. Elias agreed, but said he thought three would be better and told me to take Martin as well.”

“Right.” Tim tapped his fingers on the table for a moment, deep in thought, then he shook his head. “Have to say, it’s the first time I’ve really regretted being good at my job.”

Jon winced. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you keep saying.”

“I can go on saying it if it’ll help.”

“It’s not like an apology is going to get me my life back,” Tim snapped, his voice developing a sharp edge.

“I know.” Jon could feel his shoulders hunching and tried to relax them. “And… I’m sorry.”

Tim ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up weirdly where it was still damp. “God, I almost miss the days when you were all paranoid and mistrustful. I think this might be worse. At least when you were accusing me of murder, you weren’t looking at me like, like you’ve run over a cat and now it’s bleeding out on the road in front of you and there’s nothing you can do but watch.”

Jon’s eyes widened. “Good lord, Tim, that’s- weirdly specific, actually. Did you-“

Tim shook his head. “Happened to a friend once. It’s a pretty memorable sort of face.”

“Oh. Well. I’m- will apologising again make it better or worse?”

“God, I don’t know.” Tim fell silent for a long moment, then said bitterly, “Actually, you know what the worst thing is?”

“Ah, no.” Jon braced himself. “What is it?”

“You were right.”

Jon blinked. “I was? About, about what?”

“About all of it. When you were doing your damn _stalker_ thing, you were convinced one of us had murdered Gertrude, and you kept going on about not trusting Elias and how the CCTV footage was bullshit and all that, and... you were right. Nobody else had a fucking _clue_!” Tim was still holding his fork, but his knuckles had gone white where they were clenched around the handle. “And now I’m wondering if that was your spooky Archivist powers kicking in, or if Martin and I are just that thick. I mean, half your suspect pool were _actual murderers_. And there I was complaining about you going through my desk to the _thing_ that murdered my friend and stole her life, while it nodded sympathetically and agreed that you were a paranoid lunatic.”

“It’s not- Look, I don’t know if you read the statements about that thing, but the people it replaced, their _own parents_ didn’t know, people who’d known them since they were _born_. There’s no way you could have known, and-” Jon paused, then finished quietly, “and if you had noticed it probably would have killed you.”

Tim swallowed. “Right. Nothing I could have done, good thing I believed all its lies and didn’t get myself murdered, best to just stop worrying about it and go back to thinking about circuses.”

“Yeah.” Jon blew out a breath. He wasn’t sure how _he_ felt about the topic, but he was pretty sure anything that distracted Tim from circuses was good at this point, so he went on. “Look. The thing is, I really was just looking for Gertrude’s killer. I only noticed the missing tapes and that the thing pretending to be Sasha was behaving oddly because I was investigating _all_ of you. There wasn’t any magic involved, just, ah, perfectly normal paranoid obsession and a total disregard for personal boundaries. I mean, if it was me… just knowing things, surely I would have known not to suspect you and Martin?” Jon paused. “Well, Martin _was_ actually lying about something, which was why he was acting strangely, but I managed to get him to tell me. Er. Not using any powers. I hope... Anyway, it wasn’t anything bad, just a- a normal thing. Very Martin. And you, you were just… completely innocent. I’m-”

“Don’t say it.”

Jon shut his mouth.

There was silence for a long moment, then Tim cleared his throat. “Wait, so you actually managed to get Martin to admit to his crush? Must have been excruciating for both of you. You might have let him down a bit too gently, though, since he’s still following you around making cow eyes.”

Jon’s mouth dropped open, and he gaped for a few seconds. “W-What?! No! It was… something else, a paperwork thing. I- I don’t- Martin has a crush on me?”

Tim put down his fork and stared at Jon, then said in tones of deep incredulity, “Are you serious? I don’t think he could be more obvious about it if he took out a front-page ad. How the hell have you not noticed?”

Jon hunched his shoulders, knowing his face was going red and hating it. “Look, I- It’s not something I really… pay attention to? And, and anyway! Why would he? I was _horrible_ to him for months, and then the after the worms happened I was _stalking_ all of you. He can’t- you thought that was creepy, right?

“Oh, it was definitely creepy,” Tim agreed. “If we actually had, you know, any kind of functional HR department? I would definitely have gotten you fired.”

“Right. Ah, thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” Tim dragged a hand through his hair, looking awkward. “Uh. Look, I’ve never really talked to Martin about it, you know how he gets all flustered and suddenly remembers he left the kettle on or something. So I figured, whatever floats his boat, that’s his business. Just- I didn’t mean to, you know, drop that on you if you really didn’t know? So, if you could maybe... not be a prick about it? I’d appreciate that.”

Jon blinked, startled. “I’m not going to- It’s Martin, for god’s sake, I do have _some_ idea of what he’s like. And if he hasn’t said anything about it, I’m certainly not going to.

“Ah, the comfortable denial route.” Tim snorted, picking his fork back up and picking at what was left of his curry. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jon demanded. “How is me telling him that I know he’s got… I don’t know, some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, going to be anything other than painfully embarrassing for him?

“Well, yeah, but maybe he’ll get over it and move on if you tell him you’re not interested.”

“Of course I’m _not interested_. I’m his boss. I have mind-control powers, and I’m turning into some sort of monster.” Jon pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered, “God, really the only way he could have worse taste is if he’d decided to fancy Elias.”

“Ugh, don’t even joke.” Tim shuddered. Then he looked up at Jon warily. “You probably should talk to him, though. ”

Jon groaned. “If we manage not to die tomorrow, I’ll think about it. And once we’re not worrying about the world ending, maybe we’ll be able to get you four out of your contracts somehow.”

“‘You four’?” Tim’s eyes narrowed. “You’re planning on staying, then?”

Jon swallowed. “Whatever it is that I’m… becoming, with the _powers_ and needing statements and everything. I... don’t know how reversible it is. Everybody I know of who got this far either became an, ah, ‘avatar’ or died. Well. There was Mike Crew, I suppose, but he didn’t go back to being human, he just switched powers to one he liked better. And he’s dead now, anyway…” There was a long pause. “No, I don’t think I can walk away from this, not anymore.”

“Do you want to, though?”

“I… don’t know.”

There was another long silence. Jon gave up pretending to eat and started gathering up the rubbish, taking Tim’s container as well when Tim wordlessly pushed it over.

He took a quick shower (mostly cold; Tim hadn’t been kidding about the hot water) and emerged shivering to find that Tim had turned out the overhead lights and taken the side of the bed furthest from the door.

Jon pottered about for a minute, then quietly climbed into the other side of the bed and curled up. Tim clicked off the lamp, and Jon closed his eyes.

Neither of them was particularly large, and the bed was a decent size so they weren’t even touching, but it was… Jon hadn't shared a bed with anyone in years, not since his last disastrous attempt at dating, but he was pretty sure the presence of another warm, breathing person should have been comforting. Instead all his muscles were tense, as if expecting a blow, and he couldn’t seem to relax. He tucked himself into a ball, facing the door, and tried to sleep, with no success. From the way Tim was breathing, it didn’t sound like he was having any luck either.

Finally, some indeterminate amount of time later, Tim gave an irritated groan and flopped over onto his back. He rustled around a bit, then asked abruptly, “What was your problem with Martin, anyway?”

Jon opened his eyes, blinking. “What?”

“If you weren’t being snippy with him because he had a crush and you didn’t like it, why were you so down on him all the time?”

Jon rolled over, staring at Tim in the dim light coming through the curtains. Tim stared back at him, looking tired and irritated. After a moment, Jon blew out a breath. “It’s... going to sound stupid now, with everything, but, ah. When we were all in research, I was looking into a series of disappearances in the late eighties that were linked to a soup kitchen in Manchester. At the time I thought it was probably an unrecorded serial killer, though looking back it was more likely the Web, there were some mentions of spiders behaving oddly, and the organiser disappeared-” Tim cleared his throat.

“Fascinating, but what does this have to do with Martin?”

“O-oh. Right, sorry. Anyway, he was looking into something else around the same area, so we wound up using a lot of the same resources, and he kept putting them back in the wrong place.”

Tim's eyebrows rose. “Oooh, the horror...”

“It was very annoying and unprofessional,” Jon snapped. “And then when he did finish his paper, I read it, because I was curious to see if there was anything related to my research and it was just- sloppy. He was far too credulous, there was no critical assessment of sources, and he barely even had a conclusion! I just-”

Jon broke off because Tim had started to laugh, an actual laugh, pressing his hands over his face as he started gasping for breath. “Oh, god, poor Martin,” Tim wheezed out. “Never really had a chance because he’d shot himself in the foot with _lazy research_ before he even met you.”

“Well, he has improved a lot since then,” Jon admitted, which made a fresh round of giggles break out of Tim.

“Obviously he just wasn’t _motivated_ before,” Tim managed, snorting a little. “Ah, ow, my sides hurt.”

“I’m glad somebody is enjoying this,” Jon muttered, but his voice was far too soft. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Tim laugh, even if it was at his expense.

Tim sighed, settling back into the bed. “I think… I think I’ve figured it out.”

Jon tipped his head up to look at him, but Tim was staring at the ceiling now. “I think the real reason I’m so angry about all this is that… I was doing alright, in Research. I mean, I was still reading anything to do with circuses, but it was less... urgent. I was starting to have a normal life again, asking myself what the hell I thought I was doing looking for monsters. If you hadn’t asked me to come work in the Archives, I might actually have quit the Institute by now, gone back into publishing or something. Because… what happened to Danny was starting to feel less real, more like a nightmare, and I’d stopped believing that I was ever going to find any answers, let alone some way to track down the thing that took him." Tim breathed in slowly, let the air out again in a rush. "If you hadn’t given me this damned job, trapped me in the Archives, and gotten me half-killed by a walking corpse full of worms, I might have given up on finding my brother’s killer. You made me remember why I’d come to the Institute in the first place. And it’s probably going to get me killed. So. I hate you for it, but I suppose I’m also… grateful.”

He turned on his side, facing away from Jon, and tugged the blanket up over his shoulder. Jon did the same, and they both lay there in silence. Jon really hoped he was imagining the faint click coming from his bag that sounded suspiciously like a tape recorder shutting off, but he knew he probably wasn't. 

If Tim heard it, he didn’t say anything, and together they waited for dawn.


	2. Melanie & Basira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jon asks Melanie for a favour, and it goes about as well as he expects.

Six months just didn’t feel right. Jon himself didn’t feel like he’d been gone for any time at all, but on the other hand, the changes in the Archives seemed far greater than that amount of time should have allowed. 

He poked around his office, carefully putting things to rights, making sure he still knew where everything was. Half his stationery had vanished, and there was a half-eaten packet of hobnobs tucked behind a book on one of the shelves. His lighter was in the top drawer of his desk, and Jon tucked it into his pocket with relief, then paused and took it out again, frowning at the spiderweb pattern. 

A niggling sense of unease squirmed in the back of his mind, but then he thought about the fact that the last time he’d had it, he’d been lending it to Martin for the express purpose of burning statements, and something about that tugged at him. He slipped the lighter in his pocket and went looking for tapes. He found 0170208, the one he’d gotten everybody to record on before they left to stop the Unknowing, and listened to it again.

It… took longer than he’d expected.

He’d only meant to listen to the part at the end, where he burned Gerry’s skin, but it seemed… disrespectful, to fast-forward past the others, especially Daisy and Tim. By the end, his face was wet, but there was no-one around to see him when he sidled out of his office and went over to Martin’s desk. He looked in the bottom drawer behind the notebook, found the tape he’d known would be there, and listened to that too.

Jon was aware that it was probably a bad sign, that the crackle of burning paper was almost as upsetting as Martin’s ragged breathing while Elias’s voice took on that avid, razor-edged hiss, dragging out Martin's misery and making him suffer. He sat at his desk for a while afterwards, staring at the tape recorder, then he went to the bathroom and made sure he looked reasonably presentable. He found himself thinking, as he was washing his face, that at least having Peter Lukas around meant he didn’t have to worry about anybody seeing him behaving less-than-professionally, and started to laugh, but then he had to stop himself and breathe because it felt like it was starting to tip over into hysterics. Still, no-one to see him doing that either, and he hiccoughed out another giggle before he managed to get it under control.

He found a metal tray in the kitchen, and then he went and looked through the statements he’d recorded until he found #0140912, Timothy Hodge. He’d already recorded an audio version, and he knew for a fact (he glanced nervously at the cupboard where the container of ashes still sat) that everyone involved was dead. It was… it wasn’t an unacceptable loss. He sat and stared at it, lighter in hand, for so long that his limbs were stiff when he moved them, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch the flame to the paper. Eventually, he put the lighter away and sighed. “Guess you got lucky with the timing, Gerry,” he said quietly. Then he glanced at the clock and realised what time it was, so he left the Archives to get a few hours sleep.

It still made him twitchy, being away, but between Peter Lukas and Melanie he just wasn’t comfortable sleeping there. 

He came back in the morning, feeling the combination of relief and disquiet that always washed over him when he entered the Archives. ‘Taking comfort in the sense of being constantly observed’ was on the list of things that probably should bother him a lot more than they did, a list which was only in his head, mostly because he’d mentally subtitled it ‘possible indicators that I am no longer human’. It was quite a long list.

Melanie was sitting at her desk when he got in, a thing which was both a relief and also sort of terrifying, both because he now had no excuse to put this off, and because he could quite clearly see the knife sitting on the desk beside her.

He steeled himself, and walked to his office at a normal pace, retrieving the metal tray and Timothy Hodge’s statement. Then he walked over to her desk.

She looked up as soon as he started moving towards her, her hand immediately flying to the knife, and she hissed, “What do you want?”

Jon raised his free hand, and said carefully, “I- uh, I’d like you to do something for me.”

Her chair rattled as she shoved it back, standing and bracing one hand on the desk. “And what the _hell_ makes you think I’m going to do _anything_ for you, _ever_ again?” she demanded, her voice rising in pitch as her mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. “You should have just stayed dead you useless waste of-“

“It did hurt,” Jon interrupted, stopping just out of arm’s reach on the other side of the desk.

She blinked, then tipped her head to one side, something unnervingly predatory settling into her stance. “What?”

“You said before, that you hoped I stopped the Unknowing, but that you also hoped it hurt. It, uh, it did.”

“Do you have some sort of point here?” she asked, but the scraping edge had gone out of her voice, and she straightened up, her shoulders relaxing.

“Uh, well.” Jon sidled closer, and set the tray down on her desk with the statement on it. Her eyes narrowed, but they widened again in confusion when he fished out his lighter and offered it to her. “I’m, ah, I’m pretty sure this will hurt, too. Me, at least. Probably Elias, I’m not sure.”

She snatched the lighter out of his hands as soon as he said Elias’s name, and there was no hesitation at all when she grabbed the statement and lit the bottom corner tilting it to make sure it caught.

Jon had to grab the edge of her desk to brace himself, the pain even worse than it had been when he’d burned Gerry’s page, it felt like shaking hands with Jude Perry, like something deep in himself being torn out, even while he tried to remember that he had the recording, that the statement was unnecessary, but it _hurt_ , he could feel himself making little pained noises, sweat breaking out across his forehead and all down his back, and then somebody shoved him aside and he tripped, going down hard, and watched as Basira brought up a fire extinguisher and blasted foam across Melanie’s desk.

Basira, he noted with quiet horror, was gasping for breath, like she’d run all the way from.. “Basira,” Jon rasped out, and she turned to glare at him, mouth opening to shout, so he hurriedly interrupted, “ _ **Where were you just now?**_ ”

The compulsion took, and she said, “Upstairs in the library,” and then glared harder. “What the _hell_ , Jon? What were you two doing? And I’m not forgetting you used the bloody voice on me, that is _not_ okay, but explain this first.” She waved at the tray full of foam.

Melanie shrugged. “Jon told me to burn a statement.”

They both looked at Jon. He sat up, scrubbed a hand over his face. “I, uh. I was testing a theory.”

“And?”

“And… it appears to have been confirmed.”

Melanie flicked her hand, and Jon squawked in pain as his lighter hit him in the face, hard. “Hey! I wasn’t- Just, give me a minute, alright? I wasn’t expecting, ah, well. I was sort of hoping it wouldn’t affect you, Basira, I’m sorry. What- ah.” He took a breath. “I would appreciate it if you could tell me what made you come down here.”

He tucked the lighter away absently, and watched her face as she said, hesitantly, “I felt… a weird kind of… pain, but not anywhere in particular? Sort of a panicky feeling, and I just… needed to get to the Archives, because something was wrong. And then I came in here, and you guys had apparently started a fire on the desk, so I put it out, and all the weird feelings… went away.” She swallowed hard. “Now will you tell me what exactly you were playing at? Because I’m getting the impression that I’m not going to like it.”

“Probably not.” Jon sighed, rubbing at his face again, and winced when his fingers touched his cheekbone where the lighter had hit him. There was blood on his hand when he pulled it away, but Melanie shifted restlessly, setting the hair on the back of his neck tingling, so he figured he could worry about one more scar later. “Uh. Look. The statements are part of the Archive, right? That’s why burning them bothered Elias, enough to get his attention even when there were a lot of other things going on. I- had trouble with destroying information even before the Unknowing, but now- Well. I couldn’t even bring myself to damage it. Martin had no problems, and Melanie didn’t either, but you,” he looked up at Basira, “felt it happening from several floors away.”

Basira’s lips thinned. “I’m guessing that’s a really bad sign.”

Jon sighed. “I think… out of all the assistants, I think you’re the only one who is naturally, ah, the… right alignment?” Her expression didn’t improve, so he went on hurriedly, “You left the police because you didn’t like the Hunt, but since you got here you’ve been reading everything you could get your hands on, trying to understand how it all works. You… like knowing things. That’s not a bad thing, but it does mean that it’s easier for the Eye to get its hooks into you than, say, Martin, who doesn’t mind doing research but doesn’t need answers in quite the same way. Also he’s… well, he doesn’t have a lot of family, but unlike, say, me, he actually does feel the lack of them. I’m assuming that’s why Lukas has taken an interest in him, and why he hasn’t bothered either of you.”

“Because I belong to the Eye,” Basira said slowly. “Guess I should be grateful you woke up, then, or I would have wound up becoming the new Archivist. But-“

She turned and looked at Melanie, who glared at both of them.“Right. So, tell us your _theory_ about me, _Archivist_.”

Jon met her furious gaze, and he knew he was a coward but it was really embarrassing how glad he was that there was still a desk and Basira between them. “The doctors never got the bullet out, right?”

All the colour drained out of her face. “There wasn’t a bullet.”

Jon nodded. “But you’ve just gotten more and more angry since then, and at some point you started thinking all your problems should be solved with violence.”

“That’s because my _problems_ are you and Elias, although apparently you won’t have the _decency_ to just _stay dead_ , will you? And now I don’t know if stabbing would even _work_ on Elias, but don’t get me wrong, if the chance comes up, I will definitely _try_.”

“Right, yes, I know, but- did you ever listen to 0172-“ he broke off when they gave him unimpressed looks, cleared his throat, and went on, “the statement from Mike Crew?” Melanie looked blank, but Basira frowned.

“He was the Vast avatar, right? The one Daisy shot?”

“Yes, but before that-“

“Wait, Daisy killed an Avatar?” Melanie cut in excitedly. “How? What did she have to do?”

“Wait, just listen a minute,” Jon said, holding up a finger. “Okay, so the theory that Smirke was working on about balance, and all that, that’s because the only thing that can counter a power, an entity, is another one. Basically, from what I can tell, actual Avatars can be damaged by conventional means, but to really kill them requires another power. Daisy could kill Mike because she was part of the Hunt, that was why Elias wanted her to go after the Stranger’s people. But that’s not why I brought up Mike. He… before he died, he gave me a statement. He was originally being targeted by the Spiral, there was a whole thing with lightning storms and hallucinations, but the thing was, he turned up in a bunch of statements because he didn’t want it to take him and he was looking for a way out. He eventually realised that the only way to escape the Spiral was to, ah, join a different team, so he gave himself over to the Vast, instead.”

Melanie sank into her chair, still staring at Jon. Basira glanced between them for a few moments, and then watched Melanie, her face gradually settling into a concerned frown. Melanie swivelled in her chair a few times, twisting her shoulders so that she could maintain eye contact with Jon.

“So what you’re saying is, I’m probably becoming an Avatar of something else.”

Jon nodded. “The war ghosts would have been the Slaughter, and that would certainly explain the violent tendencies.” Her jaw tightened, and he added hastily, “Although being trapped here and attacked by monsters has definitely contributed, and I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to be angry about it, Tim and Martin certainly were too, and the fact that I’m not is… well. At any rate, the point I was making is-”

“That I could probably kill Elias,” Melanie said, starting to grin.

“A-actually I was going to say, that the way you’re going I suspect that your employment contract isn’t going to bind you to the Eye much longer, so you’ll probably be able to leave?”

She blinked. “Oh. Oh! Really?” And for a moment, her face was open and hopeful, and she looked so young and human that Jon felt almost ill.

Basira cleared her throat. “Except it’ll only work because you’re becoming something not entirely human.”

Her face fell, expression settling into lines of anger and resentment again. “You know, I really don’t think I care anymore, if it means I don’t have to stay here.”

Basira breathed in and out, slowly. “Right. Look, Melanie, just- It doesn’t… you don’t have to be a monster, you know?”

Melanie blinked at once, and a little of that human softness came back into her face. “Oh. I- um, thanks. Was she, I mean-“

“Daisy was…” Basira shrugged, looking away from both of them, her eyes distant. “Most of the time she seemed fine, a little intense about some things maybe? It was only when she was on a case, she got really focussed and obsessive and she’d just sort of forget to take breaks. After it was over either she’d crash for a few days, or she… wouldn't. If it was one of the Section 31 cases where she hauled something weird off and buried it in the woods, she’d be fine afterwards, even if she’d been living on coffee for a week and following leads instead of sleeping. So, yeah.” She looked back at Melanie, as if she’d forgotten Jon was in the room. “I don’t know how the Slaughter works exactly, but I think you can stay… yourself, if you want to.”

Melanie nodded slowly. “Alright. It’s probably going to be some sort of violence, but I might be able to stick to, I don’t know, starting bar fights, or becoming a vigilante or something. Go to bars and get picked up by creeps, maybe. I- look, I’m still not convinced that killing Elias would do for everyone in the Archive, but, well.” She gestured at the soggy pile of ash on the tray. “Destroying the Archives looks like it really might kill you, so I promise I won’t blow the place up on my way out, okay?”

Basira nodded back. “Thanks. And, well. I’m still down for craft beer night even if you decide Frank Castle is your role model, okay?”

Melanie snorted, but her eyes were a little watery. “You’re on, even if you start carrying a bloody tape recorder everywhere.”

They stared at each other for a moment longer, then Basira cleared her throat. “Right. Well. Don’t suppose you want to start with Peter Lukas, if we ever see him?”

Jon shifted carefully, but when nobody tried to stab him he said uncertainly, “That… might be one of the reasons he doesn’t come down here?”

They both turned towards him. “You think so?” Basira asked, flicking a glance towards Melanie.

Jon shrugged. “I think one of the reasons that Avatars tend to avoid direct confrontations is because their powers don’t always work on each other? I think it depends on how, ah, committed you are as to how strong you are, but I have no idea how to tell that and Peter Lukas might not be willing to risk his life to find out how powerful you are.” Jon addressed the last part to Melanie, whose eyes were narrowed thoughtfully. “He’s not Elias, after all, it’s not like he can tell if you’re armed or what you’re planning.”

Melanie hummed, chewing on her lip. “Alright.” She looked at Jon again. “I suppose you’re not completely useless, then. I won’t forgive you for getting me stuck here, but thanks for the information.”

Jon felt something like a click in his head, a voice echoing, Tim’s voice, _“Jon, I don’t know if you can hear me but if you can, I don’t forgive you but thank you for this,”_ over the whining drone of the calliope and Nikola Orsinov’s furious cries, and it felt like his head splitting open, images that made no sense trying to fit themselves it there, and then a sharp pain in his face brought him back, coughing, throat raw, and he was staring up at Basira and Melanie, who had her hand raised to hit him again, “No, don’t-“ he choked out, and she backed off, looking disappointed. Basira hauled him upright, frowning. “What was that? You just grabbed your head in both hands and started screaming, and your nose was bleeding, too.”

“I, right, sorry. Um, I think…” he thought carefully, trying to sort of edge his way around the information without actually looking at it. The memory of Tim’s voice was still relatively clear, though listening to it was a dull ache, but the rest was a mess. “I-“ he glanced at Melanie. “You reminded me of something Tim said, and I remembered some things from the, ah, the Unknowing. It wasn’t… The Stranger is antithetical to the Eye, so the memories are, apparently, physically painful. Um, I feel like this is a dangerous precedent to set, but… thank you for hitting me.”

Melanie snickered. “Oh, you know me, always happy to help.”

“Right, well, let’s get you cleaned up,” Basira said. “Good thing you were already on the floor, I guess, or you might have cracked your head open, you just sort of dropped.”

Jon twitched irritably when she offered him a hand, but accepted the help grudgingly and then had to cling onto her arm when he straightened, his head swimming alarmingly. She propped him against the desk until he steadied, then kept a hand on his back as she ushered him to the bathroom. Jon winced when he saw his reflection. There was blood smeared under his nose, and also across his right cheekbone where the lighter had split the skin, and he had a rapidly-swelling bruise on the other side from Melanie’s fist. Basira hovered for a moment, but when he showed no signs of getting dizzy and braining himself on the tiles, Basira ducked out, coming back with the first aid kit and dish towel full of ice. She cleaned up the cut and stuck a plaster over it, then gave him the ice and said, “Keep that on. You’re going to look a right mess, and if you weren’t, you know, I’d probably say go to the hospital to get checked out after the whole nosebleed thing, but, well. Read a statement or something I guess, maybe it’ll make the bruising go down too.”

Jon nodded. “Thank you, Basira. And, I am sorry. You got stuck here because you were a decent human being and you were trying to do the right thing, and also saving my life, and, well. I’m sorry, anyway.”

Basira sighed. “Look, when I stopped Daisy killing you, that was… I didn’t believe you were guilty, and I wasn’t going to let her kill an innocent person. You were right about Elias, you did get him to confess like you said, and the rest… All of that is on Elias, not you. At that point you were still operating under the belief that the world obeyed normal human laws and you trusted that all you needed to do was prove that he was guilty to the actual police, and that then me and Daisy would do our jobs and handle the situation. It didn’t work, because nobody involved with the supernatural pays any attention to normal human laws, but, that situation was Elias’s doing from start to finish.” She shrugged. “So, quit feeling guilty about me, you condescending ass. I made my own choices, and I’m dealing with them, and you aren’t responsible for that. I might be angry that you survived when Daisy didn't, and that you managed to miss all the bullshit in the meantime, but that’s my issue and not yours, and I’m dealing with that too. Alright?”

Jon nodded, a little stunned. “Uh, alright. And, thanks.”

Basira shrugged again. “Look, if we’re working together, I expect a certain level of communication. I get the impression you guys all just clammed up and stopped talking to each other when stuff went wrong before, and having Isolation hanging around the place isn’t making it any better, but there’s no way we survive this mess without sharing information and having each other’s backs. We clear?”

“Very. Although… when everything went wrong before, ah. That was mostly my fault. I was sure Gertrude’s murderer was one of my colleagues, and I went completely off the deep end suspecting the others. Also, Sasha had been replaced by a monster.”

Basira pinched the bridge of her nose. “Right.”

Jon gave her a pained smile. “Well, both those issues have been resolved, so, if Melanie isn’t actively planning to murder me I’m happy to share whatever I know?”

“Okay. Good.” She picked up the first aid kit. “Well, take it easy for a bit, and maybe don’t go upstairs today, unless you can come up with a really good explanation for your face.”

Jon sighed. “It’s hardly the first time I’ve gotten injured at work. Martin’s the only one who ever made a fuss about it.”

She nodded, turning to go, but Jon said hesitantly, “Basira…”

She paused, raising an eyebrow expectantly after a moment. Jon gnawed at his lip a moment. “About Daisy.”

She went rigid, eyes locked on his face. “You remembered something. What?”

“I- Look, I don't mean to get your hopes up. You know the couriers, Breekon and Hope?”

“Yes. Daisy lost her partner to them, her first Section 31. She made a statement about it.”

“Yes. They were there, I think they're with the Stranger. Or were. She killed one of them, ripped his throat out with her teeth. The last time I saw her she was going after the other one. But I don’t know what that means, and… Well. If she was alive and free to do so, I’m sure she would have come back for you.”

Basira blew out a breath. “Yeah. I- Right. Thanks for telling me.”

“Basira, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s- I’m still pretty sure she’s dead. And it’s probably good to have some warning that something might turn up wearing her skin stuffed full of sawdust. I- yeah, I’m just going to-“ She turned away and walked out, closing the bathroom door behind her quietly.

Jon sighed, and then let himself slide down the wall and slump in an ungainly pile. He tipped his head back, pressed the cold soggy towel against his face, and closed his eyes.


	3. Martin, or, An Archivist’s Guide to Burning Bridges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon talks to Martin. Communication is important! So is personal privacy. Being an Archivist is hard...  
> An alternate version of the conversation in MAG 124.

Jon finished his notes on the statement of Julian Jennings, and some musings on how much he hoped to never encounter Simon Fairchild (which, knowing his luck, meant that he would meet the man next week), and then he sighed and started to talk about the current state of affairs in the Archives. 

“Basira said we should all communicate more, but then she told me that she needed to follow up some leads and that she’ll let me know if it comes to anything. I’m fairly sure she’s trying to track down information on Breekon and Hope, though, since she had the few statements I’d found that mention them and our files about the Unknowing. And... I suppose it makes sense not to involve the rest of us in something that is possibly a wild goose chase, and one she’s undertaking for personal reasons, but I’m still concerned.”

and she told me that I should definitely stop leaving the Archives, so I’m back to sleeping here, although she also said there hadn’t been any kind of direct attack since. Apparently that was also when Martin just… stopped showing up, so she thinks Peter Lukas might have had something to do with the ceasefire. I still haven’t actually met him, which is annoying. I have… a lot of questions I’d like to ask him. I haven’t seen Mart- wait.” Jon paused, _**listening**_. He could almost hear- He jumped to his feet and darted to his office door, throwing it open to see a familiar figure walking away down the hall.

“Martin! Martin!” 

Martin started slightly when Jon spoke to him, but he turned around. “Hi, Jo-” He broke off, eyes widening and blurted out, “Oh my god! Jon, what happened to your face!?” 

“What-” Jon blinked, then remembered the bruising, which was going a spectacular shade of greenish-purple. “Oh, right. It’s, ah, it’s nothing, I’m fine.” 

“Right, of course.” Martin said irritably. “I suppose you walked into a door? With both sides of your face. Is this going to be like that time with the ‘breadknife’?” 

“No,” Jon snapped, “as a matter of fact, Melanie hit me. But she was trying to help me, so. It’s fine.” 

Martin gaped at him. “How is that _fine_?” He paused, took a breath, then said evenly, “Right. Well, I suppose it’s none of my business anyway, and I really do need to go, so. Do _try_ to look after yourself, Jon.” 

He turned and started back down the hall. 

“Wait, Martin!” There was something wrong with… the air, perhaps? It was getting difficult to see him already, as if there were a thick fog obscuring him in the perfectly clear hallway, and Jon, desperate, called after him, “ _ **Did you choose the Lonely?**_ ” 

“Yes,” Martin said immediately, then he spun around, his face pale. “You- you used the Archivist thing. On me.” 

“I- I did,” Jon agreed. Martin looked some combination of betrayed and furious so he hurriedly went on, “Look, I’m sorry, but I needed to know if you’d made the decision of your own free will, and that should work even if you’re being, ah, influenced by something else.” 

“Right.” Martin’s expression settled back into careful blankness. “Well. Fine. Now you do. Bye, Jon.” He turned away, but then... hesitated. “What, uh, what would you have done if I’d said no?” 

Jon blinked. “To be honest, I’m not sure? I mean, you’re probably still human enough to die, but short of that I don’t think there’s any way to actually _free_ you. So… Tried to drag you back into the Archives, I suppose. Or, if you really object to the Eye, find a way to get in touch with Annabelle Crane?” 

Martin blinked. “Who?” 

Jon shifted unhappily. “The, ah, nearest representative of the Web, I believe.” 

“O-oh. Should we be… I mean, has she approached you, or-” 

“No! No, there were a couple of statements, fairly recent, and I- well, I think she’s in the area. Sometimes I just know things?” 

“Right. And you just _know_ that this, this Web person would help me?” 

“For a given value of ‘help’.” Jon blinked once, slowly, considering. “You do… like spiders, I suppose. You were always stopping me from killing them before, ah, before. You think they’re sadly misunderstood. You always have, ever since _**the day before your ninth birthday, when a wasp got into your room, and you were terrified it would sting you, and it kept buzzing nearer and nearer and you called for your mother but she often ignored you, and then as you huddled under the window the wasp landed on the wall just near your face, its antennae twitching, and you were so frightened you couldn’t breathe, but then it stopped because one of its legs was caught on something, and as it began to struggle it caught another of its legs, then a wing, until it was stuck fast in what you realised was a web, and then a plump black spider darted out from under the window frame and it wrapped the wasp into a tidy white bundle, that horrible twitching gradually going still, and you were fascinated. You used to catch moths and beetles whenever they came into the house and flick them gently into the web to watch the spider catch them, and you talked to it sometimes, and you knew that really you should empathise with the insects, pitiful trapped victims, but you only ever wanted to be the spider, so you could take the things that frightened you, the things that you cared about, and wrap them up so neat and still that they could never hurt you again...**_ ” 

Jon blinked, took a shaky breath, and then swallowed hard as he saw Martin’s white, terrified face. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry, Martin! I didn’t mean to, to do... that. I didn’t even know that I _could_ , I don’t really have a lot of control over it yet, and- Martin? Are you alright?” 

Martin scrubbed a hand over his face, then cleared his throat. He was staring determinedly at the floor. “Right. Okay. You’re, ah, you’re really taking to this Archivist thing, aren’t you?” He gave a shaky, brittle laugh. “Wow. I’m sure Elias is _delighted_.” Jon flinched and opened his mouth to say something, but Martin went on, “I don’t know if it’s better or worse that you did that by accident, that you can just… _pull_ information out of people, that’s- Look, I really need to go. Okay? Okay. Bye, Jon.” 

He turned away, and Jon faltered for a moment, then lunged forward and caught his wrist. “Wait! Martin, I- I did actually have a point. I know the Eye isn’t really... it’s never been the need to _know_ that drives you, but what I was trying to explain is that there are… other options, if you don’t want to stay with the Lonely.” Jon took a breath, and let go of his arm. “On the other hand, if that’s your choice, I’ll respect it, and I won’t bother you again.” 

Martin hesitated, staring down at his wrist, and then ran his fingertips lightly over the spot where Jon had touched him. “Um. Look, I appreciate that you’d actually talk to some spider-avatar for me if you thought it would help, but I’m-” He paused for a moment, then said firmly, “I’m fine where I am. So just, stop worrying about me? Maybe instead you could spend your time figuring out how your new ‘powers’ work, so you can stop _accidentally_ pulling out people’s memories without even having the decency to _ask_.” 

Jon winced, both at the words and the sudden sharpness of the tone. “I really am sorry, Martin.” 

Martin’s mouth twisted up into something that wasn’t really a smile. “It’s- It’s fine.” 

“No, it isn’t,” Jon said sharply, then sighed. “But thank you. And, well, good luck.” 

Martin blinked. “Oh, uh, you too.” 

They stared at each other for an awkward moment, then Martin shook himself and walked briskly away. After a few steps he started to fade out again, so Jon closed his eyes and made himself stop trying to **_see_**. 

When he opened them again, Martin was gone. He stared at the blank hallway for a few minutes, then retreated back to his office. 

He sat down at his desk, put his face in his hands, and breathed for a few minutes. Then a thought occurred to him and he gave a shaky, humourless little chuckle. Looking up at his shelf, his gaze settled unerringly on tape 0171406, sitting beside 0160204 with 0160112 a careful distance away. “You’d probably call me a coward, and you’d be right,” he informed Tim’s tape wryly, “but I think that lets me off the hook for talking to Martin about his crush. Managing to remind him of Elias is probably… Well, if he was still harbouring some sort of romantic notions about me, I expect that’s finished them off for good.” 

He sighed. “I just… wish I could find out what Peter Lukas is doing, what he’s got _Martin_ doing. Really, it’s not as though coming recommended by Elias is any kind of guarantee of his motives, and I have a bad feeling that it’s going to involve the Archives sooner or later… I found Martin once, I wonder if I could-” 

He broke off, clenching his hands around the edge of the desk for a moment. “Oh, god, maybe it’s a good thing Martin is avoiding me, just so I’m not tempted to corner him and drag information out of him.” He dropped his face back into his hands. “The Spiral told me I was a better Archivist than Gertrude, but I’m fairly sure that means I’m a worse person… I really hope Basira comes back soon, with or without information. She’s very... steadying. I think it must be from being in the police, or maybe it’s from working with Daisy, but she has a sort of unflappable calm about her. Melanie is more herself when she’s around, too, although that might have more to do with the camaraderie they seem to have developed while I was... away.” 

“Basira did give me some recordings from when they were attacked, though I haven’t listened to them yet. Maybe I don’t want to know how bad it actually got, or maybe I just don’t want to listen to Melanie killing a bunch of... well. Humans isn’t the right word, but I suppose I’d like to think they’re still peopl? Is that the problem? It’s a lot easier to accept that kind of violence if I just assume that because they aren’t really human then it isn’t really murder, the way that Daisy did, but- Well, I’m definitely on the other side of that line now, even if I wasn’t when Daisy was going to kill me. I... It’s difficult to judge the other avatars without also judging myself, I suppose. And I don’t feel _evil_ , even... even though I know that when I dream I am forcing a dozen people to relive their worst experiences over and over again to feed the entity that I belong to. And it’s always difficult to resist the impulse to _know_ things, even when it upsets people, but that’s always been one of my flaws.” 

He frowned. “I think Georgie was right, though, that staying away from people is the quickest way to start down that slippery slope. Maybe that’s why Elias left Peter Lukas in charge of the Archives? Because whatever it is that he wants me to do will go much faster if I don’t have anyone to keep me... if not human, then at least more Jon and less Archivist.” 

Jon paused and just listened for a moment to the gentle hiss of the tape recorder that he hadn’t even noticed was still on, the way he couldn’t hear anything else, as if his office were adrift, entirely separate from the rest of the world. “It’s so quiet here,” he went on softly. “Melanie might not want to kill me but we couldn’t manage a conversation without arguing even before she got caught up with the Slaughter, and it’s... Well. It’s not her fault, we’ve never been friends, but... I mean, when _we_ were all stuck in the Archives because of,” he flicked a glance at the container of Jane Prentiss’ ashes, “her, we at least used to talk.” 

He sighed again. “I suppose what I’m saying is that I’m… lonely, unsurprisingly, and that I miss you both, and I know that if you were here you’d be horrified at what I’m becoming, and I wish there was someone I could talk to about all this. But honestly, not even Georgie was willing to stick around for that, and I really can’t blame her. So here I am, talking to a tape recorder.” He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as it caught in a knot, and mumbled, “You know what’s really funny? I don’t think Captain Lukas has had to do a damn thing to get us to this point. We’ve done it all ourselves.” He shook his head. “I need to get some sleep. Maybe I’ll listen to those tapes tomorrow. Goodnight, whatever it is that’s listening in there.”

He got up and headed out to get ready for bed, only distantly aware of the tape recorder clicking off behind him.


End file.
